Sir Nodward of Holdershire (1)! Let’s start by clearing something up: were you really a roadie for Robert Plant?

I used to ferry him around the Wolverhampton scene in my dad’s window-cleaning van when he was in the Tennessee Teens. All the ladies loved him, even then. Robert tells the story that he’d be shagging a bird in the back of my dad’s van with the window-cleaning ladders and buckets banging all around him.

And a few years later, you were both fronting the two biggest bands in the country.

I went to see Led Zeppelin when they played Earls Court, not long after we did. Robert went: “I see my ex-roadie’s in tonight, Noddy Holder!” and they did Kashmir for me. Black Country humour.

Clcik here to watch Slade perform Mama Weer All Crazee Now on German TV in 1972.

You’re here to chat about a new box set, When Slade Rocked the World, 1971-75 (2), which documents the period when you had six No 1 singles.

I always tell people it’s seven. I was in the audience at the Coventry Locarno, when Chuck Berry recorded My Ding-A-Ling live (3). If you listen closely, you can hear me singing.

What was it like in Slade in the 70s?

Mayhem. We were on Top of the Pops so much we almost became the house band. Our record company used to smuggle a crate of beer in, so we were usually half-pissed.

You certainly wore interesting outfits …

People would look at us as if the aliens had landed. Dave [Hill, guitarist] was the most outrageous. He’d outdo anybody. We called one outfit The Metal Nun. He’d never let us see what he was going to wear. You’d hear him rattling and rustling in the toilet and go: “Come on, H. Reveal.” Then we’d be on the floor with laughter, except Jim [Lea, bassist], who’d say: “I’m not going on with him dressed like that.” H would go: “You write ’em, I’ll sell ’em.” And he was right.

It’s in a bank vault. I got the idea after I saw Lulu with a sparkly dress, with the light bouncing off it. It’s actually an antique coachman’s hat with mirrors stuck on. It had its own flight case. I got the hat off a guy in Kensington market, called Freddie. He said: “One day I’m gonna be a big pop star like you.” I said: “Fuck off, Freddie.” He became Freddie Mercury.

At the height of Slademania, did the education authorities really complain that song titles such as Mama Weer All Crazee Now were corrupting the nation’s youth?

True! I wrote Coz I Luv You on the wall. [Manager] Chas Chandler saw it and said: “We’ll spell it like that.” It became our gimmick – Black Country slang – years before text speak. There was a huge outcry, but later on they taught it in schools to kids with learning difficulties – phonetic learning.

What was your funniest performance?

We did lots of TV in Europe where we’d be on with a juggler or a camel. We did one in the 80s when Merry Xmas Everybody went big again; it gets shown again every Christmas. Me and Don [Powell, drums] had been drinking for hours, and were blasted. There’s snow coming down and Don decides to play it like a heavy metal drummer, playing all these drum rolls like Animal off the Muppets. A total shambles, but great telly.

Why was the Slade in Flame film (4) so dark?

We were going to do a film called A Quieter Mess Experiment, but Dave put the mockers on it because he was going to be eaten in the first half-hour by a triffid. We didn’t want to do a slapstick, A Hard Day’s Night-type thing. We got this script from Andrew Birkin, Jane’s brother, about what goes on behind the scenes. We took him and the director on the road in America to see what it was really like. They lasted two weeks, but every scene in that film is based on a real incident. The bit where I get stuck in the coffin onstage happened to Screaming Lord Sutch. Everyone hails it as a masterpiece now, but it wasn’t what the public expected of Slade, and it killed our career for years.

Did you really turn down the job of replacing the late Bon Scott in AC/DC?

My loyalty was to Slade, but Brian Johnson toured with us when he was in Geordie, so he was the perfect choice.

We’d more or less split up, then Ozzy Osbourne pulled out. Chas convinced Dave we should do one last show. We didn’t have security passes, just parked in the public car park and walked in with our guitars. We thought we were boring old farts, but the audience went absolutely berserk. They were chanting for Merry Xmas Everybody, in August! I said: “If you want it, you sing it!” and they did, so we joined in. The next week, we were on all the music paper covers and back on the radio.

So they say! It’s a good pension plan, put it that way. We had 40-odd hits and people still think the Christmas record was the one, but it’s been good to us. You wouldn’t believe the offers I get in December. I do appear as Santa for charity, real reindeer and everything, but people think I live in a cave all year and come out in December, shouting: “It’s Chriiisstmasss!”

Has anyone shouted that at you today (5)?

Not yet, but it’s still early.

Is it true that as the N’Betweens (6), you were recording in Abbey Road when the Beatles did Sgt Pepper’s?

We never saw ’em but knew when they were there cos they all had blacked-out psychedelic Minis. We could hear their backing tracks coming down the corridor: no songs, just weird noise. Meeeooooooowww. The best compliment I ever had was when we were recording Merry Xmas Everybody and John Lennon was next door and popped in and said: “Great singer – he sounds like me.” I’m a huge Beatles fan. A fortnight ago, McCartney gave me a fellowship from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. I had a cap and gown and got him to kiss me.

And you’ve got an MBE …

And now the freedom of Walsall, my home town. Apparently this entitles me to lead sheep through the town, carry a rifle as long as it’s got a bayonet fixed and demand a free drink in any pub in town. There’s a lot of pubs in Walsall.

How much money have Slade been offered to re-form?

Silly money. Only Abba have been offered more, probably, but for any amount of money, we wouldn’t have the same magic again. I left (7) when my dad was dying, I was going through a divorce and wanted to be at home. Also, after 25 years, because I wanted to try something else, so it’s usually me that turns it down.

So when was your last gig?

As Slade, late 80s, San Francisco, but I sometimes go for a curry with the Rocking Phantoms, my first band, from school in Walsall. We go back to the hotel and if we’re drunk enough we get the guitars out and entertain people in the hotel bar, playing songs we used to play at school.

What’s the oddest job you’ve done since leaving Slade?

I was an ambassador for British sausages, going round the country dressed up daft, tasting sausages, and riding in a sausagemobile. I was called the King of Sizzle.

Most of my acting roles were versions of me. I’d love to play someone out of character, like a gangster. I get ton of scripts, but it’s usually playing a pop star in a Midsomer Murders-type thing, where I end up face down in a pool.

Pretty accurate. It shows how much we meant to people, for them to remember that stuff and satire it. If there’d been Cup-a-Soups in the 70s we’d have drank ’em. All that stuff about cutting Dave’s hair with a Fray Bentos tin around his head was pretty near the mark. We used to take the mick out of Dave, mainly about his clothes. You’ve got to remember that at the height of our fame, Dave bought a house right next to a girls’ school! So they were camping on his lawn, screaming every time he left the house. He’s always been on Planet Dave: naive, childlike. I’ve probably never met a nicer bloke. Don was merciless; very funny, actually. A few years ago, Dave had a stroke onstage, and when they brought him round, Don said: “You realise you’re gonna have to stop shooting heroin now, Dave.” Cos Dave is as clean as clean can be. He went: “I nearly fuckin’ died, you know!”

Footnotes

1 The nickname latterly given Nod by his DJ friend Mark Radcliffe.

2 Out now.

3 Ironically, Berry’s 1972 chart topper held off Slade’s Gudbuy T’Jane, which had to settle for No 2.